The Cook County Board on Thursday approved three large settlements — a fraction of the more than $120 million approved during 2024, according to the county’s Finance Committee.
The largest on Thursday’s agenda, $3 million, was for Jeremiah Cain, who spent 23 years in prison for supplying a gun in the 1999 murder of Jose Garcia and shooting of Julio Lugo, which he said he did not do. As of September 2023, he was one of 40 people exonerated in recent years after problematic murder investigations by Area Five Chicago police detectives, including Reynaldo Guevara.
The shooting was part of a gang rivalry involving the Latin Kings and Orchestra Albany, of which Cain was a member.
Cain sued in federal court in September 2023, alleging police and a Cook County prosecutor “conspired among themselves and with others, known and unknown, to frame” him for the murder. The case also alleged other officers were aware Cain was being physically and verbally abused during interrogation.
The suit alleged Detective Anthony Wojcik “struck (Cain) multiple times and punched him” while he was chained to a wall, that officers conspired to get Cain and other co-defendants to sign a false confession that he had supplied the gun used in a gang rivalry shooting, and that at trial, cops concealed material that would have cleared him. While police found the gun at Cain’s house, witnesses later said Cain had no knowledge the weapon was involved in the shooting.
Cain’s case was among a group of eight that were vacated by then-State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in 2022. Murder charges were dismissed, he was released from prison and received a certificate of innocence in April 2024. The settlement will be split between Cain and his attorneys at the Bonjean Law Group.
The board also approved a $1.5 million settlement to Robert Hill, who sued the county sheriff and the Robbins Police Department for their handling of an investigation of a 2005 robbery and shooting at a Robbins liquor store.
Hill denied ever serving as a driver for the two men who had committed the crime and that any statements implicating him were false, according to court records. Hill had also made an agreement with officers at the time that if he passed a polygraph test, he would be released. He passed and was let go, but was later arrested and prosecuted anyway.
Though said he had an alibi for the time of the robbery, his lawyer did not submit it, court records say. A judge later found that polygraph agreement was binding and dismissed the indictment. Hill was released in 2017.
The board also approved a $1.15 million medical malpractice settlement with Tondeo Wilkerson.
Wilkerson was transferred to the county’s Stroger Hospital after he dislocated his knee in the spring of 2020. Staff found problems with the main artery there, according to his complaint. Part of his leg was amputated in a surgery that wasn’t performed until the night after he was admitted.
The county and its health system do not typically comment on such settlements, nor do commissioners. The deals are discussed in closed sessions of the county’s litigation subcommittee and are approved as a package during open monthly finance meetings. All three were approved Thursday without comment. County records indicate more than $120 million was spent on settlements this year.
In separate action, the board approved tweaks to the county’s paid time off ordinance to address concerns that teachers at suburban schools would take a partial PTO day and create a substitute teacher shortage. Since passage of the original ordinance, park districts and school boards in the suburbs have pushed to be exempt from the county’s paid time off ordinance, to no avail.
They are concerned expanded paid time off would be difficult to administer and cost more to hire substitute teachers. The ordinance approved Thursday said schools “may set a minimum increment not to exceed their regular workday,” meaning workers could not opt to take two hours off at mid-day, for example.
Commissioner Scott Britton had been leading a charge to exempt schools and parks over the past year and said during a Wednesday hearing that the rule’s unintended consequences were playing out.
Entire municipalities were opting out of the ordinance, exempting the school and park districts within them. “This is exactly the consequence of what happens when you don’t vet something,” Britton said. “I don’t think by insisting on having parks and schools included we realized, perhaps I didn’t realize, that there would be fewer people covered than would have been” had we not included them.